Strong quake shakes Fukushima

Tokyo - A strong 6.4-magnitude earthquake shook northeast Japan's Fukushima prefecture, home to a crippled nuclear power plant, early on Sunday, but there was no risk of tsunami, seismologists said.

Local police said they had no immediate reports of casualties or major damage from the tremor which hit at 03:54.

The quake was centred around 100km south-southeast of Fukushima city, Japan Meteorological Agency and the US Geological Survey said, at a depth of about 40km.

It caused no new damage to the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which was crippled by a massive 9.0 quake and ensuing tsunami on March 11, public network NHK said, quoting the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

The devastating March disaster left about 20 000 people dead or missing and triggered an atomic crisis at the nuclear plant.

Japan, located at the junction of four tectonic plates, experiences 20% of the strongest quakes recorded on Earth each year.